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History of Harvard Law School & Harvard University: Selected Resources

A selective list of primary and secondary sources related to the history of Harvard Law School and Harvard University.

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Overview

This LibGuide is a selective list of primary and second sources related to the history of Harvard Law School and Harvard University. Direct links are provided for material that is available online. 

More information can be found through Harvard University Archives research guides, Harvard History research guides, and the Harvard Radcliffe Online Historical Reference Shelf.

Contact Us

Reference Assistance

Historical & Special Collections
specialc@law.harvard.edu
(617) 495-4550

Harvard Law School Library
Langdell Hall
1545 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138

HLS Alumni

Alumni Directory, 1958 – present

Directory of Black Alumni/ae

Lists Black graduates of Harvard Law School since the graduation of George Lewis Ruffin in 1869.

Additional Resources Available through Harvard Library

Alumni/ae in Action: Harvard law School Graduates in Public Interest and Public Sector Work
Produced in 1991 and 1994 only. Survey responses of  "a day in the life" of alumni working in public interest settings. Respondents are from a wide range of graduating classes.

Harvard Law School Class Reports (1883-present, irregular)
Lists class members and current employment at time of publication. Occasionally includes brief biographical statements. Generally published every five years, up to and including the fiftieth anniversary of graduation. For some classes, published more or less frequently than every five years. Class reports are restricted for eighty years after the graduation date.

Harvard Law School Year Book
Began in 1938, but not published 1942/1943-1944/1945. Includes membership of student organizations and journals as well as faculty. The last yearbook was published in 2012.

 

HLS Deans

Harvard Law School Deans

1870-1895    Christopher Columbus Langdell
1895-1910    James Barr Ames
1909-1910    Samuel Williston*
1910-1915    Ezra Ripley Thayer (died September 14, 1915)
1915-1916    Austin Wakeman Scott*
1916-1936    Roscoe Pound
1921-1922    Edward Henry Warren*
1925-1926    Joseph Warren*
1929-1929    Joseph Warren*
1929-1930    Joseph Henry Beale*
1936-1937    Edmund Morris Morgan*
1937-1946    James McCauley Landis
1942-1945    Edmund Morris Morgan*
1946-1967    Erwin Nathaniel Griswold (left to become Solicitor General of the United States)
1948-1948    Robert Amory, Jr.*
1959-1959    Livingston Hall*
1967-1968    Andrew James Casner*
1968-1971    Derek Curtis Bok (left to become President of Harvard University)
1971-1971    Albert Martin Sacks*
1971-1981    Albert Martin Sacks
1981-1989    James Vorenberg
1989-2003    Robert C. Clark
2003-2009    Elena Kagan (left to become Solicitor General of the United States)
2009-2009    Howell Edmunds Jackson*
2009-2017    Martha L. Minow
2017-            John F. Manning
2024             John C.P. Goldberg*

* Acting Dean
Partial Source: Harvard Law School. Endowments and Funds: A Catalogue (Cambridge, 1989)

Dean's Papers at Harvard University Archives

Title: Records of the Office of the Dean, 1910-1982
Author / Creator: Harvard Law School. Office of the Dean.
Location: Harvard University Archives
Description: 368 containers 
Notes: Access may be restricted. Finding aid and details about restrictions available at repository. 
Summary: Includes official correspondence files of Deans Ezra R. Thayer, Roscoe Pound, J. M. Landis, Erwin N. Griswold, Andrew J. Casner, and Derek C. Bok. Thayer correspondence concerns routine matters, such as admissions and examinations. Correspondents include Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Julian Mack and William Howard Taft. Other correspondence concerns faculty appointments, staff, endowment; topics such as post-World War II planning and correspondence of the Vice Dean.

Dean's Papers at Harvard Law School Library, Historical & Special Collections

Historical & Special Collections holds many collections of papers created by former deans of the Law School. Not all collections contain material from the individual's time as dean, but span their earlier and later professional years.

Digitized Manuscript Collections from ProQuest History Vault: American Politics and Society

HLS Faculty & Staff

Resources Available through Harvard Library

Harvard Law School Faculty (1992-present)
Faculty directory with pictures. Published annually since 1992.

Harvard Law School Faculty & Staff (1987-2007)
Faculty and staff directory with pictures. Published annually since 1987. Ceased with 2006/2007 issue.

Harvard Law School Year Book
Began in 1938, but not published 1942/1943-1944/1945. Includes membership of student organizations and journals as well as faculty.

The Inception of Modern Professional Education: C.C. Langdell, 1826-1906 (2009)
By Bruce A. Kimball.
The first full-length biography of the School's first Dean, with much information on the history of the School.

Full Text Links

The Harvard Law School ... With portraits of Members of the Faculty, and a biographical record and portraits of representative living graduates (1897)
By Eliot Norton.
Most of the book is made up of portraits and brief explanations of the lives of then living HLS alumni. Also includes a brief history of the Law School.
Full text is available through Google Books.

Quinquennial Catalogue of the Law School of Harvard University
Lists alumni from 1817-1953. Lists faculty from founding until 1953. Continued in 1958 by the Alumni Directory of the Harvard Law School.
Full text is available through Google Books.

Deans of Harvard Law School

HLS History

Resources Available through Harvard Library

The Development of Harvard University since the inauguration of President Eliot, 1869-1929
Edited by Samuel Eliot Morison (1930)
See Chapter 30, "The Law School 1817-1929"

The Law at Harvard : A History of Ideas and Men, 1817-1967
By Arthur E. Sutherland (1967)

The High Citadel: The Influence of Harvard Law School
By Joel Seligman, with the assistance of Lynne Bernabei; Introduction by Ralph Nader (1978)

Logic and Experience: The Origin of Modern American Legal Education, 1800-1920
By William P. LaPiana (1994)

On the Battlefield of Merit: Harvard Law School, the first century
By Daniel R. Coquillette, Bruce A. Kimball (2015)

The Intellectual Sword: Harvard Law School, the second century
By Bruce A. Kimball, Daniel R. Coquillette (2020)

 

Full Text Links

HLS Periodicals

Harvard Law Record - student newspaper

The Harvard Law School Record is the oldest law school-affiliated newspaper in the United States. It has gone through a number of small names changes; from September 2002-2008 the name on the masthead was "The Record." It includes Law School, national, and international news; scholarly articles; op-eds written by Harvard Law School students, professors, and guest contributors. Over the years, it has also published several special editions, including an annual April Fool's Day issue, orientation issue, and career guides. From fall 2011 through 2014 the Harvard Law Record ceased print publication and was exclusively online. In September 2015 print publication resumed with a new volume numbering system.

Search digitized issues of the HLS student paper (July 1946-November 2001)

  • Search the full text of the Harvard Law Record by using the full text search box, which is in the upper-right corner of the ListView page.
  • Users can also select individual issues from the ListView page to view in the Harvard Library Viewer. Once in the Viewer, users can search the full text within the opened issue.

More recent issues (2002-present) can be found by searching HLRecord.org. Generally speaking, online content for the The Record is not organized by issue. As of spring 2020, the following issues can be viewed in their entirety in the "PRINT" section of the Harvard Law Record website.

  • 2015-2016, issues 4-11
  • 2016-2017, issues 1-4
  • 2019-2020, orientation issue and issue 2

Harvard Law Bulletin - alumni/ae magazine

The Bulletin has been published since April 1948 and is currently published two times per year. In previous years it was issued quarterly and in some cases six times per year. The magazine features articles on HLS alumni/ae, campus events, and fundraising; it also includes class notes and obituaries. Beginning in the fall of 1997, the Bulletin was made available both in print and online.

Access to digitized issues prior to 1999 is only available to current Harvard students, faculty, and staff.

Harvard Law Today - alumni/ae newsletter

Harvard Law Today is an alumni newsletter published bimonthly by the Harvard Law School Office of Communications since September 2001.

Harvard Law Today (2001-) - HOLLIS catalog record 

Harvard Law Today online (2001-)

Introduction to Catalogs

Before the Law School had its own course catalog, the Law School curriculum was included in the University catalog. For those years when we do not have Law School catalogs, try consulting the University catalog; the information in many of the Law School’s early catalogs was identical to the University catalog.

Harvard Law School Handbook of Academic Programs & Policies

HLS Student-Created Material

Harvard University

Harvard University Periodicals

University catalogs

Record includes link to digital copies available via Google Books.
 
Record includes link to digital copies available via Google Books.
 

Harvard University General Catalogue,1978 - HOLLIS catalog record 

Student and alumni publications

Harvard & Radcliffe Annual Reports

The Harvard Presidents' reports cover 1825-1995. Most of the reports, up to and including the 1985/1986 issue, contain not only the report of the President of Harvard University, but also reports from the various Harvard faculties and departments.

The Harvard Treasurers' reports cover 1830-1995. The reports contain detailed information about the University's income and expenses, including information about endowments and gifts.

Radcliffe Presidents' reports cover 1879-1988. The reports also contain reports of the Radcliffe Treasurer from 1879/80 through 1959/60.

SEARCH HARVARD & RADCLIFFE ANNUAL REPORTS OF THE PRESIDENT & TREASURER, 1826-1995


Keywords/phrase 

Date range  to (Four-digit years)

Reports (See coverage below)
Harvard Presidents'     Radcliffe Presidents'
Harvard Treasurers'     RadcliffeTreasurers'

Sort order

   

Search results may take up to 45 seconds to display.

Combine search terms with:

  • quotation marks for exact phrase   ("James B. Conant")
  • AND   (James AND Conant)
  • NEAR   (James NEAR Conant)
  • OR   ("James Bryant Conant"  OR  "James B. Conant" )
  • NOT  (Conant NOT James)

Radcliffe Presidents reports, 1879-1988 The reports also contain reports of the Radcliffe Treasurer from 1879/80 through 1959/60.

1879/1880

1880/1881 - 1881/1882

1882/1883 - 1892/1893

1893/1894

1894/1895

1895/1896 - 1911/1912

1912/1913 - 1913/1914

1914/1915

1915/1916 - 1933/1934

1934/1935

1935/1936 - 1938/1939

1939/1940 - 1959/1960

1960/1961 - 1987/1988

Radcliffe Treasurers reports, 1960/61 through 1987/88

1960/1961

1961/1962 - 1987/1988

Harvard University Archives Research Guides

All Harvard History Research Guides

Harvard Radcliffe Online Historical Reference Shelf

Harvard-Radcliffe Online Historical Reference Shelf

A joint project of the Harvard University Archives and the Schlesinger LIbrary, this site provides access to frequently-consulted sources on the history of Harvard and Radcliffe.

Sources of note include Harvard Presidents' reports, 1825-1995. Most of these reports, up to and including the 1985/1986 issue, not only contain the report of the President of Harvard University, but also reports from the various Harvard faculties and departments, including the Law School.

Law School reports from the late nineteenth century through the early twentieth century include the following:
      • Number of students enrolled
      • Number and types of degrees conferred
      • Required courses, including faculty and textbook information, and how often the class met
      • Curriculum changes
      • Updates on the Library
      • Description of art holdings, including: paintings, etchings, photographs, etc.

Harvard & Radcliffe Annual Reports

The Harvard Presidents' reports cover 1825-1995. Most of the reports, up to and including the 1985/1986 issue, contain not only the report of the President of Harvard University, but also reports from the various Harvard faculties and departments.

The Harvard Treasurers' reports cover 1830-1995. The reports contain detailed information about the University's income and expenses, including information about endowments and gifts.

Radcliffe Presidents' reports cover 1879-1988. The reports also contain reports of the Radcliffe Treasurer from 1879/80 through 1959/60.

SEARCH HARVARD & RADCLIFFE ANNUAL REPORTS OF THE PRESIDENT & TREASURER, 1826-1995


Keywords/phrase 

Date range  to (Four-digit years)

Reports (See coverage below)
Harvard Presidents'     Radcliffe Presidents'
Harvard Treasurers'     RadcliffeTreasurers'

Sort order

   

Search results may take up to 45 seconds to display.

Combine search terms with:

  • quotation marks for exact phrase   ("James B. Conant")
  • AND   (James AND Conant)
  • NEAR   (James NEAR Conant)
  • OR   ("James Bryant Conant"  OR  "James B. Conant" )
  • NOT  (Conant NOT James)

Radcliffe Presidents reports, 1879-1988 The reports also contain reports of the Radcliffe Treasurer from 1879/80 through 1959/60.

1879/1880

1880/1881 - 1881/1882

1882/1883 - 1892/1893

1893/1894

1894/1895

1895/1896 - 1911/1912

1912/1913 - 1913/1914

1914/1915

1915/1916 - 1933/1934

1934/1935

1935/1936 - 1938/1939

1939/1940 - 1959/1960

1960/1961 - 1987/1988

Radcliffe Treasurers reports, 1960/61 through 1987/88

1960/1961

1961/1962 - 1987/1988